a
thought the world of her. That's her stone--look, down there. Not a
very grand one, considering. No, it isn't. Look, there's room for
Alvina's name underneath. Sh!--

Alvina had sat back in the cab and watched from her obscurity the
many faces on the street: so familiar, so familiar, familiar as her
own face. And now she seemed to see them from a great distance, out
of her darkness. Her big cousin sat opposite her--how she disliked
his presence.

In chapel she cried, thinking of her mother, and Miss Frost, and her
father. She felt so desolate--it all seemed so empty. Bitterly she
cried, when she bent down during the prayer. And her crying started
Miss Pinnegar, who cried almost as bitterly. It was all rather
horrible. The afterwards--the horrible afterwards.

There was the slow progress to the cemetery. It was a dull, cold
day. Alvina shivered as she stood on the bleak hillside, by the open
grave. Her coat did not seem warm enough, her old black seal-skin
furs were not much protection. The minister stood on the plank by
the grave, and she stood near, watching the white flowers blowing in
the cold wind. She had watched them for her mother--and for Miss
Frost. She felt a sudden clinging to Miss Pinnegar. Yet they would
have to part. Miss Pinnegar had been so fond of her father, in a
quaint, reserved way. Poor Miss Pinnegar, that was all life had
offered her. Well, after all, it had been a home and a home life. To
which home and home life Alvina now clung with a desperate yearning,
knowing inevitably she was going to lose it, now her father was
gone. Strange, that he was gone. But he was weary, worn very thin
and weary. He had lived his day. How different it all was, now, at
his death, from the time when Alvina knew him as a little child and
thought him such a fine gentleman. You live and learn and lose.

For one moment she looked at Madame, who was shuddering with cold,
her face hidden behind her black spotted veil. But Madame seemed
immensely remote: so unreal. And Ciccio--what was his name? She
could not think of it. What was it? She tried to think of Madame's
slow enunciation. Marasca--maraschino. Marasca! Maraschino! What was
maraschino? Where had she heard it. Cudgelling her brains, she
remembered the doctors, and the suppers after the theatre. And
maraschino--why, that was the favourite white liqueur of the
innocent Dr. Young. She could remember even now the way he seemed to
smack his lips, saying the word _